ABSTRACT
This paper has a twofold aim. It explores, first, whether we could overcome one of the perennial problems of Schopenhauer's ethics—his claim that all life is suffering with happiness only a temporary respite from pain with no content and value of its own—by re-interpreting his notion that all life is suffering with the notion that all life is vulnerability to suffering. This move from actual to potential suffering leaves, I will argue, most of the important elements in Schopenhauer's ethics intact while making at the same time space for some happiness and thus making Schopenhauer's claim less counter-intuitive. Second, emphasising vulnerability to suffering also strengthens Schopenhauer's remarkably progressive attitude towards animals which was unique in his time and is not fully appreciated even today. Schopenhauer did much to question and undermines the prevalent attitude of his time of a rigid divide between humans and animals by showing the close somatic and psychological parallels between them. Exposing vulnerabilities to suffering common to both human and non-human animals makes Schopenhauer's ethics highly relevant to one of today's most pressing environmental challenges. Meeting those challenges requires seeing the world as an inclusive unity, an interdependent whole, a view that is one of the mainstays of Schopenhauer's philosophy.
